Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad member eliminated. Hamas promises revenge –

Tensions are rising in the Middle East. The pro-Iranian Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah has confirmed the death of senior commander Ibrahim Aqil and 14 other members, revealing their names, in an Israeli raid yesterday that targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut, considered a stronghold of the group. Another Hezbollah member killed includes senior officer Ahmad Wahabi, a member of the Al Radwan elite unit command led by Aqil and head of the group’s central training unit. According to Lebanese security sources quoted by the Arab press, the Israeli attack targeted a meeting attended by over 20 senior members of Al Radwan. A “reliable source” is said to have provided information to Israeli forces about the planned meeting in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Ibrahim Aqil, known as Tahsin, had a $7 million bounty on his person from U.S. authorities. In the 1980s, Aqil was a leading member of the Islamic Jihad organization, a Hezbollah terrorist cell that claimed responsibility for the April 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, and the October 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks, killing 241 U.S. service members. Also in the 1980s, Aqil directed the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon. In 2019, the U.S. State Department designated Aqil as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” meaning an international terrorist. After the assassination in Beirut of Fuad Shukr (Hezbollah’s missile sector chief) on July 30, Aqil took his place in the command line directly after Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah. “This crime committed by the occupier is a reckless act for which he will pay a very high price, and the blood of the martyr, the leader Ibrahim Aqil will fuel the flames that will engulf this artificial entity,” reads a statement from Hamas.